Women's Soccer Fails To Advance To ECC Championship Final

Bridgeport, Conn.-The top-seed and number one ranked in the nation University of Bridgeport women's soccer team tasted its first adversity of the season on Thursday night, as the Purple Knights failed to advance to the 2011 East Coast Conference Championship Final as the number four seed Molloy College Lions topped UB 3-1 on penalty kicks after the two teams played to a 0-0 double overtime draw which is the official result for the contest.  Bridgeport is now 16-0-1 on the season, and Molloy moves into Saturday's ECC Final against Dowling with a 9-8-1 overall mark.

Bridgeport dominated the statistics in the contest outshooting Molly, 18-6, but the Purple Knights could not find the back of the net against Molloy freshman goalkeeper Nicole DellaPorta who made seven saves to record the clean sheet.  Bridgeport's Julia Hansson (So., Tockfors, Sweden) made three saves in the contest to up her single-season school record shutout mark to 13.  The Purple Knights had two goals nullified on the night, one by offside and the other by a foul.

Bridgeport shot first in the shootout but DellaPorta stopped a shot by senior Katie Stanley (Oxford, England) to give her team the advantage, and teammate Nicole Reverberi gave Molloy a 1-0 lead in the PKs when she scored. 

DellaPorta then made another save stopping UB freshman Aulona Velaj (Stamford, Conn.), and the Lions took a 2-0 lead in the shootout when Kylie Barbosa scored.

The teams then traded tallies as Bridgeport's Marie Pettersson (Sr., Amal, Sweden) and Molloy's Allison Sloper were successful on their shots to make the score 3-1 in favor of Molly heading to the fourth round of the best of five shootout.

Molloy would then advance to the East Coast Conference Championship Final when DellaPorta stopped UB's Danielle Weir (Sr., Bo'ness, Scotland) and sent her team into a wild celebration on the field.

This is the second straight season that Bridgeport has fallen in a penalty kick shootout in the ECC Semifinals, as last year Queens (N.Y.) College moved onto the ECC Final after topping the Purple Knights in a shootout.

UB will now await word on the 2011 NCAA Division II Women's Soccer Championship Tournament as this year's field will be announced on Monday evening at 7:00 p.m.